Heavy small arms projectile

ABSTRACT

FORWARD MOST OR NOSE CORE IS LEAD OR AN ALLOY THEREOF WHICH IS DEFORMABLE ON IMPACT IN A MANNER COMMON TO THE ART.   A STANDARD COPPER ALLOY JACKET IS USED TO ENVELOPE TWO OR MORE DISSIMILAR CORE MATERIALS WHICH FILL THE AXIAL CROSS SECTION OF THE JACKET. DURING THE MANUFACTURE, THE CORE MATERIALS, AT LEAST ONE OF WHICH IS MORE DENSE THAN LEAD, ARE SEQUENTIALLY SEATED UNDER PRESSURE, IN THE JACKET. THE

March 13, 1973 w. l.. Goor-REY HEAVY SMALL ARMS PROJEC'I'ILH Filed Oct. l2, 1970 F p M4,

Patented Mar. 13, 1973 3,720,170 HEAVY SMALL ARMS PRJECTILE Wesley Lynn Godfrey, 2020 N. Road 44, Pasco, Wash. 99301 Filed Oct. 12, 1979, Ser. No. 79,933 Int. Cl. F42b 1 1/ 00 US. Cl. 102-92.3 1 Claim ABSTRACT F THE DISCLOSURE A standard copper alloy jacket is used to envelope two or more dissimilar core materials which ll the axial cross section of the jacket. During the manufacture, the core materials, at least one of which is more dense than lead, are sequentially seated under pressure, in the jacket. The forward most or nose core is lead or an alloy thereof which is deformable on impact in a manner common to the art.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION My invention pertains to an improvement in small arms projectiles particularly useful when hunting large game with a relatively small caliber rifle. When hunting large game it is desirable to use a projectile with as much momentum as is reasonable in order to obtain the desired penetration. When, however, for a given caliber, the projectiles mass is increased using common techniques and materials of construction, a limit is reached in the projectiles length to diameter ratio `(L/D) beyond which the projectile cannot be gyroscopically stabilized in Hight from standard rifle barrels. The state of the art indicated that this limit is reached in a .3() caliber tie using standard lead core bullets, at a mass of about 220 grains.

One method of increasing a bullets mass while maintaining a reasonable L/D is to utilize a core material more dense than lead. Problems are immediately encountered, however, due to the hardness of materials which economically qualify for consideration:

(a) standard bullet making techniques which swage the core cannot be used, (b) pressure problems develop when upon firing the hard core bullet attempts to conform to the barrels filling,

and (c) there is little or no expansion of the projectile on impact with game.

While it is true that some of the nobel metals suffer these disadvantages to a lesser degree than does, for ine stance, tungsten, their use for the entire core is economically unfeasible when compared with the disclosed construction wherein a reduced amount of precious metal would be required.

Rather than address itself to the L/D problems of heavy small caliber bullets (i.e. .30 caliber) the current art is concerned with the development of new cartridges in larger calibers as is exemplified by the recent introduction of the .338 Win. Magnum, the .350 Rem. Magnum, the .444 Marlin, etc. while during the same period no new sporting bullets of mass equivalent to these larger calibers have been introduced in the smaller calibers.

The object of my invention is to provide a small arms projectile of signicantly higher cross section density for a given caliber than the present art can provide, while maintaining an L/D that can be stabilized in rifle barrels with a standard twist. A further object is to provide a soft nose projectile suitable for hunting that will retain a substantial portion of its initial mass upon impact.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION I have developed a 'small arms bullet which utilizes a composite core of two or more substances to take advantage of materials with densities greater than lead while at the same time retaining the impact performance of a standard lead core hunting bullet. This is accomplished by locating a heavier-than-lead core material in the rearward portion of a bullet and a lead core in the forward or nose portion of the bullet where advantage can be taken of the desirable properties of each.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING The bullet shown in a cutaway view in FIG. 4, comprises a jacket A enclosing a nose core B, a heavy core C, and a soft core D which ll the inner cross sectional area of the jacket A and which are longitudinally arranged therein.

The steps of manufacture are shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3.

In FIG. l a cross sectional view is taken through the axis of'rotation of a cylindrical assembly comprising a core seating die F, a core seating ram E shown in partial cutaway, the jacket A, the heavy core C, and the soft core D. The cores C and D are placed in the jacket A in the order shown. The core seating ram E is then inserted into the jacket A for the purpose of seating the cores C and D and expanding the jacket A in the base area, i.e. the area corresponding to that portion of the jacket shown in FIG. 4 to be in contact with the soft core D. It is not necessary to the success of this invention that the heavy core C deform and expand the jacket A also. The heavy core C should however t snugly within the jacket A.

In FIG. 2 a cutaway view of the core seating die F, the core seating ram E, and the jacket A is shown with the cores B, C and D being shown in cross section. The nose core B is seated with the core seating ram E and it B deforms causing the jacket A to expend to tit the core seating die F.

In FIG. 3 a cross sectional view is shown of a point forming'die G wherein a point forming ram H is used to push the jacket-core assembly-comprising the jacket A and cores B, C and D assembled as shown in FIG. 2- into the point forming die G thus completing the bullet as shown in FIG. 4.

FIG. 5 shows a cutaway view of a bullet using the same invention wherein the jacket A is reversed to enclose the cores B, C and D from the front.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A small amount of a soft core D is rst seated in a jacket A in such a way that the jacket A is expanded to its desired size. In FIG. 1 the soft core D is forced by a core seating ram E to expand the jacket A into a core seating die F. Since the purpose of the operation is to intimately unite the soft core D with the jacket A and to adjust the jacket to the exact desired size, this could also be done by placing the soft core D in the jacket A and reducing the diameter of the jacket A.

As shown in FIG. 1, a heavy core C is placed between the core seating ram E and the soft core D during the seating of the latter D. 'Ihis is normally done as one step since in practice the heavy core C is not usually easily deformable. It is not necessary however, that the two cores C and D be seated in a single operation.

Since the heavy core C is not usually deformable, it is sized such that its diameter, when combined with the thickness of the jacket A will just fill the riiles bore and will not cause excessive pressure in the ries barrel.

As shown in FIG. 2 a nose core B is seated on the heavy core C by the core seating ram E, and the jacket A is expanded to fill the core seating die F. This operation could also be accomplished by reducing the jacket A to the desired size around the nose core B.

The core seating operation has been described as being accomplished in either two or three steps; however, the

number of steps is not critical and in fact adequate results can be achieved with a single core seating operation. The novelty in the core seating operation lies in the fact that two or more dissimilar core materials are seated.

As shown in FIG. 3 the jacket A with its seated cores B, C and D is forced by the point forming ram H into the point forming die G. Since the nose core B is deformable but the heavy core C is usually not, it is important that the curve of the formed bullets point not extend back beyond the intersection of the nose core B and the heavy core C. If the heavy core C is deformable, the particular nose shape is less critical.

The preferred materials of construction comprise a jacket A of copper or a copper alloy, a nose core B of lead or an alloy thereof which will deform or mushroom on impact, a heavy core C of tungsten or tungsten carbide, and a deformable core D of lead, although paper and polyethylene have been used to demonstrate that any deformable material can be used to form a gas seal. It has also been demonstrated that by carefully controlling the diameter of the heavy core C and the thickness of the jacket A a gas seal can be obtained without excessive pressures yand without resorting to the use of a deformable core D.

As one example of an embodiment of my invention, a tubular gilding metal jacket A closed at one end with an outside diameter of 0.305 inch by 1.150 inch in length and an inside cavity which tapers from 0.271 inch at the open end to 0.263 inch at the closed end, is used to envelope a soft core D of lead weighing grains, a cylindrical tungsten metal core C 0.264 inch in diameter with a mass of 167 grains, and a nose core B of lead Weighing 78 grains. When fully formed in the manner described, a 300 grain, round nose, soft point bullet is produced which has essentially the same external'dimensions as a standard 220 grain bullet.

During testing it was determined that the bullets performance on impact was a function of its rate of deceleration as follows:

(1) a low rate of deceleration resulted in the common mushroom effect on the soft lead nose core;

(2) at moderate deceleration rates the soft lead nose mushroomed and split the jacket back to its junction with the heavy core, whereupon the mushroomed nose was shed and the heavier remaining portion continued to penetrate;

(3) at high deceleration rates, after the nose core was shed, the heavy tungsten core separated from the jacket and continued penetration-although under these conditions the nose core often fragments, the jacket usually retains greater than of its initial weight while the heavy tungsten cores if recovered are reusable, showing no weight loss or deformation.

What is claimed as my invention is:

1. A small arms projectile comprising:

(A) a hollow jacket having an enclosed rear end, an inwardly tapered nose section, and 'an intermediate cylindrical body section extending from the rear end to the front nose section in which the intermediate cylindrical body section has an exterior cylindrical surface aligned coaxially with a projectile axis, said jacket having an interior cavity defined by an annular interior wall centered coaxially with the projectile axis in which the cavity has a rear volume adjacent the rear end, a forward nose volume extending to the nose section and an intermediate volume between the rear and forward volumes and longitudinally confined in the cylindrical section;

(B) a cylindrical rst solid core of a readily deformable material having a specific gravity less than 12, completely occupying the rear volume, in which the first solid core has an exterior surface engaging the interior wall of the jacket;

(C) a cylindrical second solid core of a tungsten material having a specific gravity greater than 12 completely occupying the intermediate volume in which the second solid core has an exterior cylindrical surface engaging the interior wall of the jacket;

(D) a third Solid core of a readily deformable lead material completely occupying the front nose volume having an exterior cylindrical surface engaging the interior surface of the jacket, the respective first, second and third cores having planar end surfaces which are in abutting relationship.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,202,162 10/1916 Clay 102--52 2,724,334 11/1955 Norton et al. 102-52 3,370,535 2/1968 Permutter 102--923 3,357,357 12/1967 Voss IGZ-92.3

FOREIGN PATENTS 1,116,575 11/1961 Germany IGZ- 92.3

SAMUEL W. ENGLE, Primary Examiner U.S. C1. X.R. 102-52 

